World Water Day: Imagine if You Woke Up Tomorrow and No Water Flowed from Your Taps

Imagine if you woke up tomorrow and no water flowed from your taps. How far would you have to walk to get to the nearest fresh water source? How long would it take you? And what things could you have done during that time if you didn’t have to devote it to your very survival? Now, imagine this happens every day to a billion people. Yes, a BILLION people.

Water is our most basic need. Everything starts with water access, including how much food someone can grow or raise. A game by One Drop lets you build a meal and shows you how many liters of water were used to produce it. The results will shock you.

The point is this: the need for water goes well beyond having enough to keep someone alive. Easy access to water means better hygiene, more crops, and more hours to devote to other work and education. On World Water Day we come together to figure out the best ways to make that happen. Every year people come together looking for possible solutions to the water crisis that endangers the lives of 400 million people in Sub Saharan Africa alone.

The good news is that it is working; in Sub Saharan Africa access to safe drinking water has improved 22 percent since 1990. But there is still a long way to go. Every 14 seconds someone, usually a child, dies due to inadequate or unsafe drinking water.

All Aid for Africa members face water challenges everyday. Several Aid for Africa members are meeting this challenge head-on. At The Earth Institute at Columbia University, researchers are developing solutions for water conservation as it pertains to agriculture. Through their water projects, charity: water has made safe water accessible for more than 1 million people in Sub Saharan Africa. Last year World Hope International drilled its 700th well , bringing freshwater to 500,000 people. A Glimmer of Hope Foundation has funded more than 2,000 water projects in Ethiopia alone, made all the more important because at any given time, more than half of Ethiopia’s 75 million people are suffering from an unnecessary water-related disease.

Learn more about World Water Day and check out this video from charity: water, which highlights the amazing differences one well can bring to a village.